HBJ and Halliwells held talks four years ago – Ward
FORMER Halliwells staff now working for HBJ Gateley Wareing could vacate their controversial building in Manchester’s Spinningfields area by the end of September, according to HBJ’s joint managing partner.
Mike Ward, who runs the firm’s Birmingham office, told TheBusinessDesk.com the firm had a licence to stay until September 28 in the property, which he described as ‘over the top’.
HBJ took on 40 partners and more than 200 other staff from Halliwells as the Manchester-based firm staggered towards administration this week. Its move to opulent purpose-built offices have been blamed for the collapse.
In a video interview, Mr Ward also revealed that HBJ Gateley Wareing held exploratory talks with Halliwells in 2006 but didn’t pursue the idea of a merger because of differences over the Manchester firm’s ambitions to float.
“There’s a huge back office support system there (Spinningfields) and we need access to that to run the business in the short term,” he said.
“All the firms who have accepted into partnership the old Halliwells partners are needing to buy services from the administrators. Over the next six to eight weeks that will become clearer and the businesses can start to become a lot more independent.
“Everything is up for grabs in that period of time – we have that window to make those decisions.”
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Mr Ward revealed that the firms had toyed with idea of merging in 2006, but the idea got no further than an initial two-hour meeting.
“We chewed over what they were thinking of doing and their plans for the future,” he said. “A lot of it was around the Legal Services Act and opportunities for law firms and capital injection. At that time they had an intention to be the first law firm to float.
“We liked the people and the business but the idea of a float sounded a bit too uncertain.”
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The move into offices in Hardman Square – which he described as as “seriously over the top” – was largely to blame for the Halliwells’ collapse, said Mr Ward, but the firm would have survived if it were not for an accident of timing. “If that move had been 10 years earlier – at the start of the boom period I don’t think Halliwells would have gone bust,” he said.
He is also troubled by what happened to the £20m profit from the property deal which was reportedly shared amongst Halliwells partners. “Obviously that’s a large sum of money,” he said.
“You’ve got to ask yourself when they took that did they have the best interests of the firm at heart? I would have expected the £20m to have been left in the for at least three years to ensure everything was operating profitably and they could afford all the overheads.”
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